Round Winners

The winner of round 101 is
now the turfer with the most Gold medals: congratulations to Király
from Malmö, Skåne! He won with just over one million points and I
was ”lucky” to take two zones from him when I visited Malmö
during this round, and then I lost more than ten zones to him. C’est
la vie! OdKing from Dalarna also turfed home a little over one million
points for his first silver medal. Leifons from Stockholm biked
enough to secure his first Bronze Medal. Well done mates!

Turf
Events

Lusseturf
will take place in Västerås for the sixth time on Sunday the 9th of
December. It is an event by foot and a new thing this year is a team
competition. Read more and sign up at: http://www.uturf.se/?p=55612.

If
you want your public event featured in Turf Insider, write to:
insider@turfgame.compreferable
at
least two months in advance and add a web page if possible. After the
event it is always fun to read a paragraph about it (winners,
weather, funny episodes) and remember that a picture is always worth
more than a 1000 words.

Turf
Meetings

Turf
Insider has received a greeting from the turfers in Turku/Finland:

”Greetings
from Lounais-Suomi in Finland.Our
team is growing in Turku (Åbo) and neighborhood.For
a long time some of us have been talking about trying to get the local
turfers together to get to know each other.It
turned out to be harder than we thought as all of us are not reading
the chat.But
to get started we had our first meeting on Sunday November 25th.We
met at the Market Square and took TurkuCity zone as a group. After
that we walked up the hill to the Art Museum and took TurkuArtzone
as well. Unfortunately one had to leave out from the second zone.It
was a short meeting but really nice to get to know each other betterand
we will definitely have another one later on.With
more planning and hopefully get in touch with more Turfers to join
up.

In
Northern Sweden the lakes now have skateable ice on them. Something
ZoneBanger from Umeå took advantage of the other day when he put on
the long distance ice skates and skated around the Nydala lake,
visiting 15 zones, among them Bont’s two winner zones. This made me
a little bit jealous since we don’t have a similar lake with as
many zones in Uppsala.

If
you have a meeting, event or something fun you want to share with
the community, write to insider@turfgame.com

Turf Christmas
Fun

In
the last edition of Turf Insider, KråkanKrax told the story about a
Turf dinner in Mariehamn and how Tompaj had put together a Turf Quiz
for their after dinner entertainment. He has redesigned the questions
a little and the quiz is available at: https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/4f1
(only in Swedish though).

Inspired
by Tompaj’s quiz, five Uppsala-turfers put together a "Piece-by-piece" (Bit-för-bit) with Turf-related categories at the Saturday’s Turf brunch. We hope
you enjoy it!//Munin, TriggerHappy, SaffieSiri, Hylaeus and
HogSquare. (both English and Swedish version)

Three
Quick Ones

Three random
turfers who have answered the quick questions :)

Turf
nick: PaltN

What
made you begin with Turf?

An
acquaintance told me about the game a couple of years ago, and I
absolutely loved the idea. It wasn't until this spring I started
playing due to me lacking a decent phone to play with. No turning
back now!

Which
personal goal are you most satisfied with?

Fighting
in the first days of a round to score a temporary top 10 position in
my home region. Ended up at 7th
position before I had to surrender. I never knew pain before that
moment. As a side note I'm also really proud over how far the
TurfWiki project has come. It's wonderful to be part of an awesome
team and see all contribution from the community come together.

Which
medal was the toughest to take?

Greed-75.
It was a good challenge and the moment I got it was very rewarding.

Turf-nick: Kygni

What
made you begin with Turf?

A
friend from Enköping mentioned it during Easter holiday in 2015

Favorite
Zone

Kygni99,
my winner zone.

Most
memorable zone you have taken.

Seglaren.
I swam to it in September 15, 2017. Cold cold water. I was there with
my school class. The zone was situated in the old place, far far away
from land, and I was told by the gym teacher to get out of the
water, in the end I got 30 seconds to take the zone and I made it!

Turf-nick: Vortex

What
is the most frustrating with Turf?

The
start of a new round. There is always some kind of problem,I've
probably never had a round start that has gone without a hitch.

A
medal you would like to see in the future

The
Sphinx Medal when you take x number of monument zones and/or world
heritage zones. May be several levels to it.

Most
memorable zone you have taken.

VictoriaFalls.
A spectacular and cool zone!

Turfa
lugnt/Safe turfing!

Cancer is a horrible and terrible disease. During 2018, the Umeå Turfer Vozne among many other people was diagnosed with cancer, thyroid cancer.After two operations during summer 2018 and a treatment with radioactiveIodine in October it looks as she won the fight against her cancer. DuringOctober, Vozne’s partner Bont fought and managed to win the Gold medal forround 100. In honor for his love and her fight against the cancer the shapeof the winner zone will be a butterfly, symbolising the efforts madeworldwide to treat thyroid diseases. When the winner zone lights up November 25Vozne and Bont will explain the shape and inform about the possibility tocontribute to the rehabilitation of those trying to recover from cancer.

Round
winners

The
winner of round 100 claims his second Gold: congratulations to Bont
från Umeå, Västerbotten! He also managed to complete his 50th
(!) Staminatrix during his winning round. Too bad there ain't a medal
for such an achievement. ZonerX from Stockholm turfed home a little
over 1 million points for his first silver medal. GW007 from Kalmar
had to make do with a Bronze medal, but maybe that was the goal since
it is his first bronze. Well done mates!

Turf
Wiki

At
https://wiki.turfgame.com/en/wiki/Main_Page
you can read about many aspects of Turf. As of October 31 2018,
TurfWiki is going through a major overhaul supervised mainly by PaltN
and Kartmannen. This will hopefully improve the general tidiness and
readability of the articles. The task is estimated to carry over into
2019.

Turf
Meetings

KråkanKrax
from Åland is sharing a story about a Turf dinner they recently had
in Mariehamn:

We
are a small group of 4-6 people (from the beginning KråkanKrax, Yoth
and Tompaj, later we included our partners UtiVårHage, Aspirin and
Griffonlady) who enjoy each others company. We decided to meet at
Tompaj and Aspirin on a Saturday night to eat and drink champagne to
celebrate all the medals and successes that had been bestowed upon us
in recent months. The evening was a success with lots of ideas and
laughter while we ate well and ”bubbled”.

We
were also challenged to a "turf game quiz" where we had to
answer all possible and impossible questions about Turf, show our
knowledge about the game and other turfers in the "world".
It was a much appreciated initiative from the hosts :) Late
at night or early in the morning we (KråkanKrax, UtiVårHage and
Yoth) biked home, of course via "some" zones. One of us did
not get home right away even though we separated from him at his
stop. He rambled about for another 2 hours on the bike all the way
down town and you all know who, right? ;)

If
you have your own Turf Meeting story you would like to have featured
in Turf Insider, please write about it to: insider@turfgame.com
My aim is to have at least one Turf Meeting story each month. You can
write in Swedish or in English, a few sentences are enough (if you
write too much, I will edit it). A picture is always fun too. It can
be both about monthly organized meetings or small encounters while
turfing.

Holy
Zones and the Ghost Minute Medal

There
are today 3135 Holy Zones (HZ) to visit in Turf.A
HZ should be entirely or mostly placed in a “Holy” area; the area
around a church, mosque, synagogue or similar buildings originally
built for a “Holy” purpose. The zone can also be placed just
outside the compounds, but then there must be good visual contact
with the building so the turfer can get a “Holy experience”.Also
graveyards without “Holy” buildings are considered as “Holy”.

Accordingly
to www.lundkvist.com the turfer PinkCat has visited the most HZ, to
date 708. Of all the attributes, Holy is the most common, maybe
because holy places are easily identified for zone makers when
placing new zones. HZ are often well worth visiting too. Crew members
recommend Hallgrímur
in Iceland and IshaveZone. I am also very fond of my closest HZ,
VakChurch, where I took Ghost Minute.

Ghost
Minute is awarded to those turfers who dare to take a Holy Zone
between 00:00 and 00:01. To date 2199 turfers have taken this scary
medal. Most plan quite carefully how to take it, but there are
instances when taking it comes as a pleasant surprise. This happend
to Rydenskan when she was going home from a night out with some
turfer friends. Her phone was giving her some gps trouble, so after
restarting the phone and getting assist on MosqueZone, she and her
company were very surprised when the Ghost Minute medal showed up.
Someone who planned carefully how to take Ghost Minute was edjur.
This is edjur's story:

”Most
turfers taking the Ghost-medal plan it with some care, my planning
was a bit extreme. A few of us turfers in Uppsala sometimes to medal
combinations where we combine several medals in one take. In August
2015, I wanted to combine Ghost with Insomnia, El Staminatore and
Take-15000. Some months planning and 23 hours of careful turfing to
take excatly 199 zones without missing any hour was culminating with
this one last take of the holy zone EriksMountain. It would be my
15000th
take in total and 200th
within the last 24 hours, it would be the last hour of Insomnia and
it needed to be taken between midnight and one minute past. I was
very nervous until the ”zone taken” came with all four medals
following. It was with a great sense of achievement I rode my bike
home that night.”

Turf
Events

Next
month, Lusseturf will take place in Västerås for the 6th
time on Sunday the 9th
of December. It is an event by foot and a new thing this year is a
team competition. Read more and sign up at: http://www.uturf.se/?p=55612

If
you want your public event featured in Turf Insider, write to insider@turfgame.com Best
is to write at least two months in advance and add a webpage if
possible. After the event it is always fun to read a paragraph about
it (winners, weather, funny episodes) and a picture is worth more
than a 1000 words.

Three
Quick Ones

Three
random turfers who have answered the quick questions :)

Turf
nick: Munin

Favorite
Zone

BlåFågelholk.
The blue bird house in the zone makes me smile every time I take the
zone. And the forest path from TriggerHappys is fun to bike :)

What
is the most frustrating with Turf?

When
the technology does not work, either my own phone or the game
servers.

Which
medal was the toughest to take?

The
Staminatrix medal, it was so boring to bike around the same 40 zones
in Uppsala for about 9 hours, yet it is somewhat fun to have done it.

Turf-nick:
Game-Over

What
made you begin with Turf?

My
daughter challenged me

An
accessory (not bike) you used to take a zone.

Rubber
boat, to take Munksjön

A
medal you would like to see in the future

Adventure
Medal

Turf-nick:
SaffieSiri

What
made you begin with Turf?

A
training mate introduced me, he talked so much about it. The next day
I downloaded the app and was stuck!

Most
memorable zone you have taken.

Skördaren
and all the other zones in the area affected by the forest fire in
Västmanland back in 2014.

Turfa
lungt/Safe turfing!

It´s that time of the year again, Saint Lucia´s day is approaching.Turf Västmanland invites all turfers for a foot event, Lusseturf, in Västerås, Sunday the 9:th of December. The same place as every year, Orientalen. Easy to find, it´s next to the zone “Orientalen”. The organizers appreciates any attempt to dress up as a "luciatåg", and is compulsory if you and your fellow turfers want to compete as a team (luica, tärna, stjärngosse och tomte). Sign up at uturf.se, the 2:nd of December at the latest. The organizers reserves the right to cancel the team competition.

We hope that it will be lots of snow and lots of fun. More info, in swedish, at www.uturf.se.

▼

TURF INSIDER October2018-10-24 19:06:49

Round
winners

The
winner of round 99 hails from my own home region Uppsala: Kygni, he
is the fourth member of the exclusive sub-20 age group of Turf World
winners :) He announced his intent the first day of round 99 to
Uppsala turfers, and he kept biking all the way, taking greed-350
during the last weekend. Lejfis from Örebro grabbed his first silver
with a will of steel and constant smile accordingly to fellow turfers
in his region. MaXi, another young one, from Dalarna won his first
bronze in fierce competition with runner-up snickaren. Something
tells me MaXi will be back for more of the valuable medals in the
future. Well done mates!

Winner
Zones

After
winning Gold in the World or in any of the official Turf countries
(Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, The Netherlands and
Korea), the winner gets to place a zone, a Winner Zone, in that
country. It is common that the zone has the form of a crown or
something that defines the turfer who won (simpson has winner zones
in the form of cats or the first letter of the turfer). The country
list has to have at least 30 turfers on it, for a Country-medal to be
awarded and a winner zone to be allocated.

To
date 367 winner zones (WZ) have been placed in official Turf
countries. The top three cities to visit if you collect WZ are: Oslo
(43), Mariehamn (40) and Kampen (32). In Sweden, Kalmar is leading
with 13 WZ followed by Linköping (11) and Malmö (11). At
http://lundkvist.com/
(site is only in Swedish) statistics over who has taken most WZ can
be found and at this time it is the man behind the site, HappyF, that
has most WZ under his belt (144). Two of his favorite winner zones to
visit are ElCamino in the Botanical Garden in Gothenburg and
WsnurrsHage in the Botanical Hage in Oslo. Do we see a common
denominator here? ;)

Many
turfers have celebrated their Winner Zones not only by being the
first to take it, but also with ”bubbles” together with friends.
KråkanKrax is sharing a picture of Tompaj and Yoth when they
celebrated her WZ KråkansSång. They took it together, again showing
the beauty of Assist :)

Turf
In Finland and Finland Explorer

Finland
is divided into seven regions in Turf. The majority of Finnish
turfers can be found in Mariehamn (Åland), Helsinki (Etelä-Suomi)
and Turku (Lounais-Suomi). 56 turfers have visited all regions of
Finland and are proud holders of Finland Explorer. kingenin and
MasterOfTurf were the first to take this medal way back in 2013
(before most of us knew of Turf).

Åland
is the Finnish region with most active turfers. They speak Swedish,
have a high degree of autonomy from Finland in governing itself and
consists of a large number of islands with amazing scenery. The
turfers in Mariehamn are very hospitable, something I experienced
myself when rozaliona invited me over for coffee one evening. They
don't have a Turf club or organized Turf get-togethers yet, but
plenty of spontaneous meetings and acitivties.

During
last year's Steel FM Help (local radio station sending live on the
city square and collecing money for charity), the turfers in
Mariehamn donated under the name ”Turf Åland” and had daily
Crowdy-takes in a special zone on the sqaure. Thanks to one of the
local radio hosts, the Crowdy-size grew every day, culminating in the
International record of 52 Assist on New Year's Eve (not counting the
Swedish record of 177 at the Bonanza in Jönköping 2017).

A
Turf Meeting Story from rozaliona

”This
is a picture from Lilla Homen, the central beach in Mariehamn, and
beyond the row of birds lies the zone "HolmenBeach". From
that, I personally have a very nice memory of the first turf tourist
I met. I had paddled all the way there and picked up the phone to
start the app. To my surprise, I saw a turf figure on the beach and
when I looked up, I saw a man wading into the water, further and
further out, until he began swimming with one arm up in the air. He
looked up on the phone from time to time and I did not have the
audacity to go and block the zone for him (there was no assist back then...
which would've been nice), so I waited until he took the zone.
This was my first meeting with the Stockholm turfer LBz :)”

For anyone living in or near Stockholm (Sweden) it is easy to take the ferry over
to both Mariehamn in Åland and to Helsinki. I have done both, and
had my bike with me both times. Mariehamn in August is lovely, and
by bike it is a perfect place to visit for a couple of days. I am
sure it is fantastic by foot too, but it will take you more than a
couple of days to visit all the zones. In Helsinki, I and two other
Swedish turfers met up with local turfer Fillefilur for a 3,5 hour
private turf tour (long live Assist!). He took us out of the city
centre towards the northeast and then back to the ferry. One of the
cooler zones we visited was Mamutsauna at the end of a very desolate
pier; the zone is next to a metal sculpture of mammoths and a
people's sauna open for everyone.

The
remaining five regions in Finland are easiest to take by car, but
trains and buses are another option, although then it is more difficult to
bring your own bike. However, most Finnish cities do not have so many
zones since there are few/none local turfers. Any ideas how to
increase Turf's popularity in Finland is highly appreciated by
TurfCrew :)

My
personal favorites among Finnish cities are Kupoio, Oulo and
Rovaniemi. All three cities are relatively flat and the number of
zones are under 1 zone/biked km (in Kuopio it was almost as many zones per km biked as home in Uppsala!). The zone RanuaKirkko in Lappi is
extra special to me, since that was where me and my partner took the
Finland Explorer medal in August.

For Finnish turfers there is a page in Finnish at https://turfgame.fi
and don't forget the Finland Section in the Turf Forum. If you have
zone suggestions you "burn" a little bit extra for, please start a new
topic in the Zones section for Finland to get the attention of the
Finnish zone makers, so they can pick up on your desire for a new zone :)

Three
Quick Ones

This
month we look east at three Finnish turfers who have answered
the quick questions :)

Turf
nick: Fillefilur

What
is the most frustrating thing with Turf?

When
the Avatar does not want to go into the zone, even though you're in
the middle of it in real life, or when the Avatar jumps out of the
zone in the middle of the take.

Which
personal goal are you most satisfied with?

Finland
Explorer. I travel very little with work and when I go on holiday, it
is rare to travel in my home country.

An
accessory (not bike) you used to take a zone.

Umbrella,
the zone was out in water due to high water levels and I had no swim gear with me. Could walk out a bit but it was not enough, so I put
the phone in a bag that I stuck on the umbrella, which I then
stretched out.

Turf-nick:
KråkanKrax

Favorite
Zone

SleepingBoats. I can go out in my morning robe and take the zone on the other
side of the road when I go to the mailbox to pick up the morning
newspaper.

Which
medal was the toughest to take?

The
first time I took bronze. SJ took silver and he was going as the
X2000 speed train from Kiruna.

Most
memorable zone you have taken. Why?

The
church in Finström (StMikaels) when I took Greed-300 and had the
clock against me. I needed more zones and had "everything"
in the center of the city.

Turf-nick: TortugaVeloz

What
made you begin with Turf?

It
was via a friend. Turf got me out instead of sitting at home

Favorite
Zone

FöriZone,
free ferry over Aura river

A
medal you would like to see in the future

Silver
and Bronze in Finland, we in Turku have no chance of winning gold in
Finland.